China indicates rejection of APEC envoy

China yesterday said only ministers in charge of economic affairs from Taiwan could attend the upcoming APEC summit, a remark which appeared to indirectly reject President Chen Shui-bian's (陳水扁) appointment of former vice president Li Yuan-zu (李元簇) to represent him at the leaders summit later this week.

Currently Li is a senior advisor to the president but has no formal economics-related title.

"The established practice is obvious, namely that `Chinese Taipei' can only dispatch what they call `the ministerial level' official in charge of economic affairs to attend the summit," said Zhu Bangzao (朱邦造), spokesman of the Chinese Foreign Ministry.

Zhu's counterpart in Taipei declined to make any comment on Zhu's remarks.

"Consultations remained ongoing, so we will not respond for the time being," Katharine Chang (張小月), spokeswoman for Taiwan's foreign ministry, told the Taipei Times.

A foreign ministry official, however, currently in Shanghai preparing for the week-long chat fest slated to begin today, challenged Zhu's remark.

"Was Koo Chen-fu's (辜振甫) capacity in accordance with these rules [Zhu claimed]?" the official told the Taipei Times.

Koo has represented Taiwan at the leaders' summit several times in the past.

Shen Ssu-tsun (沈斯淳), the APEC senior official in Taiwan's foreign ministry, was tight-lipped yesterday when asked about the latest result of the negotiations with his Chinese counterpart, Wang Guangya (王光亞).

Shen told reporters that he would do everything possible to allow Li to go to Shanghai.

In 1995 when former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) proposed that Koo Chen-fu (辜振甫), Taipei's top negotiator with Beijing, attend the APEC summit in Japan in his capacity as "senior advisor to the president," Beijing pressured Tokyo to reject the proposal.

Yet in the end Koo did attend. This was brought about by Koo's being appointed at the last minute as a consultant of the Council for Economic Planning and Development (CEPD).

Koo then attended the summit in this revised capacity, a source close to Koo told the Taipei Times on Friday.

The same pattern was followed in 1996 and 1997 when Koo represented Taiwan's president at the regional grouping's annual summit, sources said.

When asked if China could accept Li's attendance at the summit, Zhu said, "If the candidate handpicked by Taiwan was in accordance with the rules I've just described, then that person can come; if not, then he can't come."

A source at the presidential office in Taipei late last night said that if the representation question was simply a matter of a title, this could be easily resolved.

But when asked if the appointment of Li as an economic affairs-related official, following the precedent set by Koo, could facilitate Li's attendance, Zhu claimed: "It has nothing to do with the title."

Zhu made his statement in Shanghai around 7:30pm yesterday when chased by Taiwan media representatives craving answers to the unsettled issue on Taiwan's attendance at the two-day APEC leader's summit, slated to begin on Saturday.

Taipei has told Beijing that it would like Li to attend the summit on behalf of President Chen Shui-bian in Li's capacity of senior advisor to the president.

In Taiwan this has been seen as an attempt to elevate the second-rate status of Taiwan's representative to the leaders' summit.

Since 1993, the year the first meeting of APEC leaders was held near Seattle, Beijing has pressured the conference's organizers into blocking the participation of Taiwan's president, premier and vice premier at the annual summits.